Close research institutes to cut red tape, says Barcelona leader

Merging or closing some of Catalonia’s numerous research institutes could help researchers get on top of the region’s notoriously unwieldy bureaucracy, the University of Barcelona’s president has argued.

Now an established centre of excellence in biomedical research, the administrative region in north-west Spain is one of the most successful regions in Europe for securing Horizon grants, winning €1 billion (£835 million) between 2021 and 2023, a tally matched only by Paris and Munich. Overall, it won more European Research Council (ERC) funding in this period (€170 million) than the rest of Spain, despite accounting for only about 16 per cent of the country’s population.

This historical success in winning ERC and Horizon grants – widely regarded as the benchmark for research excellence – should not preclude major reform to Catalonia’s highly complex system of independent research institutes and public universities, said Joan Guàrdia Olmos, who has led the region’s largest university since 2021.

“We have 52 research institutes – some very small, some very big – and those institutes are connected to universities. At Barcelona we have contact with 14 research institutes whose staff will sometimes teach there and our academics will work in those institutes,” explained Olmos.

“That system has been justified by Catalonia’s success in the ERC, where we are very competitive, winning many project grants, but the structure is a problem. We now have too many research institutes and we need to think about reducing and concentrating this number,”  said Olmos.

Although Catalonia’s research administration rules are viewed as relatively flexible compared with those in other Spanish regions, its red tape has long been criticised as slowing research activity. Lengthy sign-off procedures for approving grant applications, journal subscriptions and costs related to temporary laboratory staff have been raised as problems, with a 2022 report by CERCA, the umbrella group representing research centres, saying that excessive red tape had a “devastating” impact on institutions’ ability to operate effectively.

“The main reason for concentrating resources into fewer institutes is simplifying the different regulations governing research institutes, even if they are slightly more flexible than in other parts of Spain,” Olmos said.

On many metrics, Catalonia performed far more strongly than both the UK or Germany, traditionally Europe’s biggest research powers, said Olmos. Focusing on life science grants awarded by the ERC between 2019 and 2023, Catalonia won €13 million per million citizens compared with €8 million per million in Germany and €4 million per million in the UK.

“You can’t really compare Spain as a country [on these metrics],” Olmos added. “It’s more a federation of 17 autonomous districts, each with different rules, and the result is a very complex and fragmented system of universities and institutes across the Spanish system,” he added.

With 22 per cent of Spain’s researchers in Catalonia and about 25 per cent of business R&D spent there, Catalonia has emerged as Spain’s main centre for research. “The offer of work for young, talented scientists – either in industry, research institutes or universities – is most important, particularly in areas like biomedical science and neuroscience,” said Olmos.

“With our new scientific infrastructure in Barcelona we are definitely seeing more excellent Spanish scientists working abroad thinking about returning,” he said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com